Menschenrechte für Priesterkinder

The first five of the six questions below illustrate the core of the discrimination of the children of catholic priests. They refer to the different aspects of this discrimination and demand from the catholic church, that it give accurate information about its conduct and about the situation children of priests and their mothers are in. The sixth question refers to a method of this discrimination, that is apparently being used by the Order of the Jesuits in particular.

How many priests within the catholic church in Europe do to your knowledge / your estimate have children of their own, are there official numbers about that?

Is it possible for the respective father, and the mother and the child, to openly establish contact with each other, and to then maintain this contact to the extent that they themselves wish?

Does the priest, the respective diocese, the individual member of an order or the order as a whole, pay child support, and if yes, is this payment made without being attached to conditions?

What are,in the case of the death of the father, the regulations concerning the inheritance?In cases where the father was a member of an order: Are the orders prepared, given that its individual members had admittedly vowed poverty, but considering that the order as a whole has made a considerable gain through the often highly qualified and accordingly paid work they did (in universities etc.), to pass on a share of this gain to the children?What are the regulations in this respect concerning parish priests, which receive above-average income in most countries? Do their children after the fathers death at least receive their statutory share of the inheritance?

Is the catholic church prepared to compensate children of priests and their mothers, to whom human and civil rights have been denied, and to apologize to them?

On the website www.humanrightsforchildrenofpriests.org, it is described that the Order of the Jesuits coerced a former provincial into a forced marriage with an elderly widow convenient to the order, in order to thwart permanent contact between him and his son, and to make it more difficult for the son to assert his rights to child support and inheritance. The described case took place in Australia, but, before further investigation, at least two similar cases are known from Germany. There too, men who until shortly before had been members of the order of the jesuits, married an elderly widow shortly after the birth of their child, instead of the mother of the child. As one can't help suspecting a method used more often here, I ask you to comment on whether it is certain that the Order of the Jesuits does not use this method any more.

In the concluding report of it's meeting in February 2014, the pemanent commitee of the UN- convention on the rights of the child exhorted the Vatican " to assess the number of children born of Catholic priests, find out who they are and take all the necessary measures to ensure the rights of these children to know and to be cared for by their fathers, as appropriate“ and set the Vatican a deadline until it's next meeting in 2017 to implement the recommendations of this exhortation. Do you know what the Vatican will report to the commitee at it'smeeting in 2017, and whether or not there is a discussion about this within the catholic church

If you want to support us, you can send a mail, a fax, or a letter with those 6 questions to

- the President of the commission of the bishop's conference of the European community Adrianus van Luyn comece@comece.org and/or bureau@bisdomrotterdam.nl Fax: 0032 (2) 230 33 34 COMECE, 19, Square de Meeûs, 1050 Brussels, Belgium

- You can find a suggestion for your mail, fax or letter to the commission here -